"By the way… why do you always scout locations while eating?"
After Roqi hung up, Suzi asked curiously, watching him stare blankly out the window.
"Maybe it's just habit. Like how Chinese people like to do business over a meal. Honestly, I think hot pot works too—it's just not very elegant."
Roqi thought for a moment and answered seriously.
Within minutes, the sky visibly darkened.
Floodlights and spotlights around the factory blinked on.
At night, the corporate-heavy Arroyo district in Santo Domingo had a unique pulse of its own.
RCS Logistics Hub – Arroyo District
As a major Night City corporation, Revere Courier Services (RCS) had its own towering HQ in the company plaza.
This site, however, was the heart of its logistics network—a hub of warehouses, storage units, loading docks, automated equipment, and endless waves of workers.
Even after dark, it stayed bustling, almost giving the illusion of a thriving economy—as if Night City was improving.
There was everything here… except armed guards.
Unlike Arasaka, RCS wasn't a private security giant. But it invested heavily in automated security.
Why? Simple economics.
Even with labor costs cut to the bone, RCS processed an astronomical volume of freight every day. To keep things moving, core logistics had been turned over to high-level AIs.
Despite the cautionary disaster that was the old Net, cost-cutting corps still pushed new-generation AI systems—marketed as "loyal, secure, unhackable."
Anyone with half a brain knew it was just a facelift—updated security protocols slapped on the same unstable core.
But for now, things were "stable." Systems worked. No hiccups.
Still, the scars of the old Net ran deep. Paranoia lingered.
But RCS? They didn't care.
Only profit mattered.
More of it. Faster.
They even replaced human guards with drones and security bots—cheaper, tireless, always alert.
But for some, that came with a fatal flaw...
A soft power-down whir echoed.
From perimeter fences to buildings, to hidden compartments in ceilings, walls, and floors—surveillance and fire control systems began shutting down.
The industrial clamor masked everything.
Like a silent infection spreading through the network, more ICE nodes were quietly breached and overwritten.
Night had already fallen—but RCS operated as if stuck in time.
Each hour looked like the last:
Endless cargo, ceaseless traffic, a river of workers.
But even in 2077, some things still needed human hands.
For example: door-to-door courier pickups—be it imported luxury cars or grandma's bear-shaped cookies.
"Hey! Move it! There's a line of trucks waiting!"
A PDA-wielding staffer shouted, rapidly verifying cargo. Once cleared, he waved drivers forward to meet their nanosecond-precise quotas.
A smart delivery bot rolled past.
A driver in a red jacket sprinted back to his truck—his implanted timer said he had less than five seconds left to finish his bathroom break.
VROOOOM—
As a mid-size truck left Lane 5, a massive semi roared into Lane 1, drowning out the smaller vehicles.
It was impressive at first glance—but for the overworked staff running double shifts, it was a daily grind. If you didn't go numb, you'd burn out.
Thankfully, new hires got a standard implant package:
• Noise-canceling cochlear mods
• Internal waste recyclers
• Bioelectric stimulators
These made you a durable cog in the RCS machine—keeping things running at maximum efficiency.
Because high efficiency = max profit.
[BROADCAST MESSAGE – ALL EMPLOYEES]
Welcome to the RCS Family!
That's right—Family!
From the roof-mounted transmitter, another mandatory announcement blared out.
All implants, per contract, were hardwired to this frequency—ensuring employees were "always connected."
Sometimes it was urgent—like logistics shortages or reroutes.
But today it was just the usual corporate bullshit:
"At RCS, 'family' means something.
We support one another. Speak up. Stay united.
It's this unbreakable bond that brought us to where we are!"
"We are one of Night City's most innovative employers.
We value flexibility, ambition, creativity, and the ability to perform under pressure."
"Let's build a brighter future—together!"
It was the kind of speech that sounded like someone shoved a chili pepper up your ass—loud, saccharine, and painful.
No one cared.
Everyone kept working.
The loud ones kept yelling. The blank ones stayed blank.
It was like a sparrow chirping over a roaring machine—then flying off, and silence returning.
Yes—silence.
Even noise had rhythm here.
And no one noticed the final turret go offline.
"Employee 9527! EMPLOYEE 9527!!"
A bloated man in a red suit strutted out of the HQ tower, stomping across the skybridge with his gut bouncing like jelly.
He walked like he owned the place. His squished features tried—and failed—to look stern.
Clearly annoyed.
He puffed out his nonexistent chest and flicked his jacket for dramatic effect—more habit than function.
"9527! You again!?"
His voice rose as his eyes locked on target.
He tapped his PDA—sending a report straight to 9527's neural inbox.
"What's this?! The… uh… the shipment! The numbers don't match!?"
He almost said something classified, then caught himself mid-syllable.
He knew what was in those boxes—generally.
But not specifics.
Most workers didn't even know what they were handling—no manifests, no scans, no inspection.
"They delayed the delivery! What do you want me to do?!"
Employee 9527 looked helpless.
He'd only been out of training for a few weeks and had never dealt with this kind of shipment.
The special ones came in through Lane 1, no unloading—just cranes to warehouse.
He didn't even know anyone in that department.
To be honest, the job was suffocating.
It wasn't the workload.
He used to work for Petrochem—one of the worst corpo sweatshops.
They ran biotechnical fermentation off GMO wheat, including imports from China, all to fuel their skyrocketing biofuel profits.
The top dogs got fat bonuses.
Grunts like him? Crushed under quotas.
So he transferred to RCS—barely five kilometers away.
But after just a month as Employee 9527, he already regretted it.
Mostly because of his fat-ass supervisor strutting around like a prize rooster (or pig).
It was humiliating—and dangerous.
Another coworker had just been "squeezed to death" by contract loopholes. Fined into oblivion, he chose death over debt.
He wasn't the first. Wouldn't be the last.
Wasn't even the first this week.
"That's YOUR department's problem!"
The boss's beady eyes bulged.
"But we're not allowed to leave our stations! If the delivery doesn't come, what am I supposed to do?!"
9527 protested.
Lane 2 was now shipping mystery cargo out of the country—opposite direction from Lane 1. Same shady packaging, same silence.
"I don't care. You fix it."
The boss waved a pudgy hand. "I'm not dying for this!"
It was an order from above.
He didn't care how—only that it got done.
"I'll give you a number. Call him."
He sent it over.
"Who is this? Why am I calling him?"
"He's… um… from Heywood HR… one of our, uh, logistical partners. Yeah. Partner."
The boss wiped a fresh layer of grease from his forehead. The heat didn't help.
"I'm giving you four—no, three hours. Hand off your tasks. Go to Heywood. Find him. Handle the shipment."
9527 hesitated.
Something about this stank.
But the moment he thought about his unpaid bills, his young face soured with frustration.
Fucking Night City.
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